MONUMENTS.) Sargon's own account of the great victory which he won over the Samaritans is as follows: (1) "In the beginning of my reign, the city of Samaria I besieged, I captured; and I carried away 27,28o of its inhabitants; fifty chariots in the midst of them I collected, and the rest of their goods I seized; I set my governor over them and laid upon them the tribute of the former king. (Hosea).
(2) "(Sargon) the conqueror of the Thamud ices, the Ibadidites, the Marsimanites, and the Khapayans (identified by Delitzsch, with the Ephah of Gen. xxv :4, and Is. lx:6), the remain der of whom having carried away, he transported to the midst of the land of Beth-Omri.
(3) "The Thamudites, the (Ibadidites), the Marsimanites and the Khapayans, distant Arab tribes, who inhabit the desert, of whom no scholar or envoy knew, and who had never brought their tribute to the kings, my fathers, I slaughtered in the service of Assur, and trans ported what %vas left of them, setting them in the city of Samaria." This record was found in the long summarizing inscription on the walls of the Khorsabad palace, and the translation which is above given is that of Professor A. II. Sayce.
The Biblical account of the condition of things preceding this capture, and pertaining to it, is found in 2 Kings. "Against him came up Shal maneser, king of Assyria, and Hoshea became his vassal and rendered him tribute. And the king of Assyria discovered treason in Hoshea in that he had sent messengers to Sere the king of Egypt, and did not send up tribute to the king of Assyria, as in year upon yeas. and the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison.
"And the king of Assyria went up through the whole land, and went up to Samaria and laid siege to it three years. In the ninth year of
Hoshea, the king of Assyria (Sargon) took Sa maria, and exiled Israel to Assyria and settled them in Halah, and Habor, on the river Gozan and in the cities of Media." (2 Kings xvii :1, 6). SAMARIA, REGION OF (Greek usually Za,udpeca, sam-ar' i-ah).
The same as the city of Samaria, but frequently distinguished from the city by Josephus and in the New Testament. When it is said (Luke John iv :4) our Lord passed through the midst of Samaria, the meaning is, through the midst of the country of Samaria. And again, "Then cometh he to a city of Samaria called Sychar." Here Jesus had a conversation with a woman of Samaria, that is, with a Samaritan woman of the city of Sychar. The term in-. eludes all the tribes over which Jeroboam made himself king, whether east or west of Jordan. The expression, "cities of Samaria" (i Kings x.ii :32), is used for the kingdom of the ten tribes, which did not receive this name till after the building of the city of Samaria as the capital of 'lie kingdom and the residence of the kings of [srael (xvi :24). It is used elsewhere in the same sense ; thus, by "Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria" is meant Israel (Is. ix :9-12). Israel, Ephraim, and Samaria are equivalent terms in Hosea, who also calls the calf of Bethel "thy calf, 0! Samaria" (Hos. viii:5). In Amos iii :9 the "mountains of Samaria" are spoken of ; and we find the expression in Ezekiel (xvi :53), the "cap tivity of Samaria and her daughter."